Sunday, May 18, 2008

The Weekend Report

This weekend was full of sun, fun in the water and family. On Friday night Wes and I headed down to my in-laws for a belated Mother's Day weekend, and to pick up his motorcycle and kayak a little. Well ok, kayak a lot!

Saturday morning we got up at 6am and headed out to the Kansas River. That early in the morning it was cool, and breathtakingly beautiful. After sa slightly rough hike down to the water's edge, we set into the river. Although I had been a little nervous about rapid-flowing deep river water, I was wrong on both accounts. The water did move along, but it wasn't super quickly, and in most places you could feel the sandbars beneath your paddle if you set it in too far. We lazily floated and paddled down the river about 5 or 6 miles, rescuing two duck decoys along the way.

It was around mile 6 that I started to get a little anxious about when we might be finishing. You see, for those of you that know me, you know that I was born tragically devoid of the sports gene. It's genetic and it's definitely inherited. After about 6 miles, the sun was out and it was warmer, the gnats and flies were enjoying us and my arms were getting a little tired. Unfortunately, Wes informed me that we were only half way there. Well we would have been halfway there if the map hadn't lied... when all was said and done we kayaked 15 miles! (OK Wes towed me for a few of those but I did at least 10 miles myself!)

All in all it was a good trip, although I bowed out of doing it a second time this morning and let Wes and his mom make the trek. We saw lots of interesting things on the river. Wes and his mom even rescued an abandoned canoe this morning. But nothing amused us more than this "redneck fishing boat" moored at the side of the river.